


Connected

by Noventia



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, F/M, Harmony - Freeform, Hogwarts, Observant Harry, Smart Harry, Soul Bond, Things will be different
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2016-08-25
Packaged: 2018-08-10 07:51:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7836409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Noventia/pseuds/Noventia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry was one when a prophecy ruined his life. He didn't want to live his life alone; he was so glad when he realised he didn't have to.</p>
<p>Or, the one where Harry and Hermione are Soul Bound and they change the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Attack

**Author's Note:**

> This is being cross-posted on FF.net, but if you see it anywhere else please let me know. I have the first few chapters written, and I will be posting every few days until I've caught up and then I'll update as I finish chapters.
> 
> A few notes;  
> First, I have changed a few things about certain characters. Subtle personality changes that will ultimately change the way they react to things; this has been done intentionally.  
> Second, this is an AU. Meaning that this story will not follow the Canon timeline exactly, nor is it meant to. 
> 
> Now that that's out of the way enjoy!

Harry was one when a prophecy ruined his life.

He was at home, cuddled into his mum’s chest as she rocked him to sleep. He could hear the low timber of his dad’s voice as he spoke to her, as he spoke to him. 

Harry was happily envisioning his future, growing up safe and loved. Constantly cuddled and played with, a child’s dream, when a prophecy ruined his life.

He first knew something was wrong when he couldn’t hear his dad’s voice anymore. He didn’t worry though; he was probably just doing something else. He really knew something was wrong when his mum tensed beneath him, and her hold became almost painfully tight.  
Normally he would cry, alert her to the fact that she was close to hurting him, but something made him pause. He was very close to his mum, a bond made strong by both of their magic, and it was telling him to be quiet. 

Very quiet.

His dad’s voice spoke again, though it was loud and harsh to his ears, he pushed his mouth against his mum, intent on being quiet. She began to move under him, still clutching him close to her as she began to climb the stairs. He could tell by the movement, the way she held him still in an attempt not to jostle him but didn’t quite manage it with how quickly she was moving.

His nursery smelt of lavender. It made him sleepy; he thinks that’s why his mum insisted on it. Every day she would spray it, never directly onto his bed though. 

He recognised his nursery, not just the smell but the sight of it. The ceiling above his bed was blue, and it had people flying around on it. Harry always found that amusing, and he could stare at them for hours at a time if he was allowed to. He didn’t think this was a time he would be allowed to.

His mum hugged him. All he could see was red; he knew this was the colour of his mum’s hair. It was a beautiful colour. He didn’t know how to describe it yet, but one day he would and when he could he wanted to write about it. Wanted to paint it for her; wanted more than anything for her to know that it was his favourite colour in the whole wide world.

It wasn’t just red, and that’s what made it so special. It wasn’t the same as the colour of the fire trucks that careened down his street sometimes. It wasn’t the same as the roses out in the garden. It wasn’t even the same as his favourite red plate. 

Nothing was the same beautiful colour of his mum’s hair.

His mum put him down. He whimpered a bit, his small hands automatically reaching out for her. Trying to grab fistfuls of her beautiful hair, of her clothes; anything to stop her from letting him go.

She cooed at him, her soft voice telling him to let go; her hands gently easing her hair out of his hands, untangling the red strands where they were wrapped uncomfortably tight around his little fingers. He didn’t really have a choice, he had to let go. 

She put him on his bed; his back pressed into the soft blue blanket that he slept with. His dragon plush sitting just inches away. He reached out to it, tugging it towards him until the soft pink underside of the dragon was against his face. 

His mum was still watching him, her hair falling around her face and towards him. If he reached up he might be able to grab it again, though she was likely to notice and move out of the way. His mum was smart like that. His dad’s voice came from downstairs. 

His parent’s never shouted, even when he could tell they were angry, never had they shouted at him or at each other. Why were they shouting?

His mum soothed him, her voice going soft as she turned back around. Her fingers carded through his hair, a gesture that never failed to make him feel better. He sighed, curling into her fingers, wanting more than anything for her to lift him into her arms; for her to hold him close and cuddle him until he fell asleep.

She didn’t though.

A loud crash from somewhere downstairs startled her and she jerked her hand away. He whimpered at the loss of contact, the loss of heat curling through his hair radiating from her fingers. He missed the feeling of her nails gently raking his scalp; he wished she would start again.

She didn’t. 

She knelt by his bed, her hands gripping the bars that kept him from falling out during the night. She cooed at him again, her eyes were bright and shiny. He thought that green was his second favourite colour; after red of course. There was more red so he liked that best, but green was there too. 

Green was always there. Shining at him whenever she looked at him, green was expressive. He always knew what she was feeling by staring at the green of her eyes. 

Always. 

He knew that the green was cold when she was angry, that it sharpened into shards of green ice when his dad and his friends did something she didn’t like. He knew that the green was warm and bright when she was happy. He knew that the green would shine and grow dark when she was sad. 

The green was dark and shiny now.

He didn’t like dark green. Dark green was bad. Dark green meant something bad. Dark green meant his mum was sad. 

He cooed back at her, tried to reach out for her hand. She pulled away from him, lifting a hand to wipe at her eyes. She smiled at him, her lips shifting into a soft, sad sort of curve. The sounds from downstairs were louder now, more frequent and closer to them. 

His mum squeezed her eyes shut, her hand flitting between the bars to grasp his hair. She didn’t move her fingers, didn’t speak and didn’t open her eyes. She sat still, her hand tangled in his hair and he waited.

Waited for her to do something, waited for her to comfort him the way she always did. 

She didn’t.

There was a louder noise, one that didn’t sound the same as the others. It was like something big and heavy falling on the floor, almost like when his dad sat down really fast. 

His mum choked; her other hand flying from the bars to cover her mouth. There was water on her cheeks, she was crying. He made a distressed noise, and for the first time since she brought him upstairs she didn’t shush him. Her eyes opened to stare at him, and they were darker than he had ever seen them.

She scraped her hand through his hair again, just once, before she stood up. He reached for her, moving up onto his knees and gripping the bars to help hold him up. She shook her head at him, smiling softly.

She drew her wand; turning her back on him as she placed herself between him and the door. He didn’t understand what was happening. Didn’t understand what she was doing.

Then the door opened.

He was expecting his dad. He’d be standing there, his hair standing up weirdly like it always was, his eyes crinkling the way they did when he smiled too hard. He’d take the step towards his mum and would grab her waist, he would dance her around the room, the both of them laughing, before lifting him out of his bed and dancing around with him as well.

It’d happened before; he was expecting it to happen again.

It wasn’t his dad though.

He didn’t know who it was; he didn’t think he had seen him before. He was tall, though he wasn’t that much taller than his dad. He had black hair like his dad too, he was paler though and more lanky. 

It was his eyes though, that were the real difference. It was the man’s eyes that scared him.

They were red. 

The man was talking to his mum. He could hear his voice, oily and cruel, echoing around the room. His mum’s voice followed, strong and defiant. 

He didn’t understand.

The strange man lifted his arm, holding his wand aloft, and a bolt of green flew from it; right towards his mum. Harry screamed; it was dark green. Dark green was bad, always bad.

His mum was on the floor, right near his bed. He cried, and he cried. The man walked towards him, carelessly stepping over his mum.  
The man stopped by his bed, his voice sliding over his skin like a snake. He shuddered through his tears, not liking it at all. The man’s voice stopped, his wand rising again. 

There was more dark green, and then there was nothing. A loud noise and the man had gone. 

His mum hadn’t though. She still laid there, quiet and still right by his bed. He could see her beautiful red hair spread out on the floor, like a halo he thought. 

Harry was one when a prophecy ruined his life.


	2. Different

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry's home life with the Dursley's.
> 
> I wasn't planning on posting until tomorrow, but I'm bored so you can have it early :)

Harry was six when he realised he was different. 

He hadn’t been doing much of anything, just sitting in his cupboard minding his own business, when Dudley had run down the stairs over his head; he knew it was Dudley because of the heaviness of the footsteps. The movement of the stairs caused his favourite toy soldier, the only one that still had both arms, to fall off the little shelf and onto the floor. 

The left arm broke off.

Harry had never been a particularly emotional child, but he struggled not to cry. His eyes burned with the effort of keeping in his tears. It would only make it worse, he reasoned with himself, if he were to cry. If he cried, then his uncle would open the door and demand him to stop; then he’d see the broken soldier.

He’d be mad, demand why Harry was breaking things that he had been generous enough to give him. He’d get in trouble. So he didn’t cry. He bit his lip and rubbed at his eyes until the burning went away. His hands were slightly wet, but that was easily ignored.   
He picked up the soldier carefully, not wanting to jostle him and held his arm up to his body; trying to fit him back together. It was no use, Harry knew that, the soldier was broken and he couldn’t fix it. 

Still he tried.

He tried, and he tried and he tried some more. Finally, after hours of sitting on his little pile of blankets, something strange happened. There was a spark, a weird little light that zapped where he was holding the arm up to the soldier. Confused, and perhaps slightly frightened, Harry let go of the arm.

It didn’t move. It stayed where it was, attached to the soldier once more. 

Harry dropped the soldier onto his bed; he’d never drop anything onto the floor and risk breaking it, and scurried backwards. He ended up pressed up against the very furthest bit of wall he could reach; right up under the bottom step of the stairs. His head was bent at an odd angle and he was nearly too big to fit but he made it work.

He lay there staring at the soldier, miraculously fixed, for hours. 

After that, he decided that maybe he could fix other things? Or at least he figured that he could try to. It wasn’t really a useful skill if it took him hours every time after all. 

So he set about practicing, braving the wrath of his aunt and uncle every time he stopped what he was doing to stand and touch something that was broken for too long. 

The amount of times he was locked in his cupboard skyrocketed, and truthfully he did miss going outside, no matter how rare an occurrence it had been before. But it wasn’t all bad either; he made friends with the spiders. 

It was strange, the whispery sounds that spiders made had never reached him before, but now it was all he could hear when he was alone in his cupboard. It was very comforting, this strange new sound, though he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what it meant.

Was it the sound of them spinning silk? Harry thought that would be a pretty cool thing to hear. Maybe it was the sound of their eight legs skittering across the floor? That was a bit weirder, he thought, as spiders couldn’t be that heavy. Though a part of him, most of him, wished they were trying to talk to him.

How cool would that be? Harry thought being able to talk to the spiders in his cupboard would be amazing; he wouldn’t be so lonely if he could do that.

So, Harry figured that he could hear the spiders talking; though he still had no idea what they were saying. So he set about trying to learn, learning how to listen all over again. He’d sit for hours in his cupboard, not making a sound, with a spider on his lap or hand and he would stare at it.

He’d stare and it would whisper at him and he would try to understand. The first time he heard a word he freaked out. 

Though, Harry figured that freaking out was a rather reasonable thing for a person to do when they heard a spider tell them to sleep. Of all the things a spider would say, he found it amusing that it would choose to tell him to go to sleep; when he had been staring at it, trying to hear anything for hours. 

He had really needed the sleep, so he had listened.

He always wondered what would happen if he told his aunt and uncle that he could talk to spiders; would they believe him? Send him to a loony bin? Lock him up in his cupboard and never let him out again?

Part of him wanted to find out, but another part of him told him that nothing good would come of it, and really that part of him was right. So he kept his mouth shut, he was good at that, and didn’t draw their attention to him.

He knew he was different, he knew he was strange. He also knew that that was why his relatives hated him so much; he just didn’t know how they knew. He hadn’t known he was a freak, so how had they? They’d called him that his whole life, so they knew, but he just didn’t understand how.

He desperately wanted to ask them. Harry didn’t like not knowing things, especially if they were about him; if someone was giggling about him at school he always asked why. Why were they laughing? It was an easy way for them to start in on the teasing, but it let Harry know why they were teasing. As long as he knew that then it was okay. 

Not knowing though, that was unbearable. 

He knew they hated him, knew that they knew why he was a freak, but he didn’t know. This fundamental part of him, that influenced the thoughts and feelings of others towards him, and he didn’t know what it was; that sort of made him feel sick.

Not the kind of sick where he threw up all the food he’d eaten, but the weird sick feeling that gathered in the pit of his stomach and stewed there. The kind of sick that made his head hurt from thinking too much, that made his heart start racing with desperation to know what they did.

He so desperately wanted to ask them.

He wasn’t stupid though. No matter how many times they shouted it at him he knew he wasn’t stupid. Did everyone else think he was stupid? Well of course they did. He messed up tests on purpose at school, it wouldn’t be good if his aunt and uncle found out he had better marks then Dudley after all, and he never did his homework. 

His teachers thought he was slow. The other kids did too. 

He never answered any questions, got them wrong on purpose when the teacher asked him. He endured the twittering giggles of the girls in the row behind his, and he endured the boys shoving him on the playground. 

All so he didn’t have to endure his uncle when he got home.

He wasn’t stupid, so he didn’t ask anything. Not asking questions didn’t mean he wasn’t curious though. Harry liked to think he was far more curious than any of the others kids in his class; it was why he asked them why they laughed at him. It was why he found himself tiptoeing through the library on silent feet sneaking books into his bag, dashing out of the library before the teacher could see him. 

His curiosity led him to things he didn’t even know existed. Things like NASA in the United States; imagine going to moon and being an Astronaut! Things like cruise ships, stopping at all these different places; imagine seeing the world on a big ship! 

Harry saw all these things, all these normal things that he had never heard of, and he found himself despairing. He wasn’t normal. Would he be able to be an Astronaut? He didn’t think so. Would he ever get to go on a cruise and see the world? No, he probably wouldn’t. He doubted they’d even let a freak onboard, let alone buy a ticket.

So he sat in his cupboard for hours and hours, speaking to his spider friends, and he thought. He thought an awful lot, thinking of all the ways he was decidedly not normal, and all the ways that would no doubt affect his life and he knew. 

He knew that he, Harry, was different.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave me a comment to let me know what you think!


	3. Hold on to Hope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I could not wait another moment to post this chapter! It's my favourite one so far, and I'm dying to know what you think of it so please PLEASE leave me a comment :) xx
> 
> In this chapter, Harry finds some hope to hold onto.

Harry was eight when he first saw her.

He was in the park, levitating rocks behind a tree, when it happened. He was taking a break, levitating took a lot of energy after all, and looked over to the playground. It was empty, considering it was getting rather late that wasn’t strange, but there was an odd sort of shimmering by the monkey bars.

Odd, he thought. That’s what it was. Odd things should be investigated, so he scrambled up from his seat on the grass and moved closer.   
He was honestly expecting it to be gone by the time he got there, expecting it to have disappeared and he would be forced to admit that he might actually be crazy, when it changed.

All of a sudden he was looking at a girl. She was sitting on the monkey bars, the way the girls in his class do sometimes, swinging her legs slightly. She was wearing a dress, though he couldn’t tell what colour it was, and her hair was blowing in the wind. He thought that was odd too, since there wasn’t any wind.

She was a beautiful sight. All shimmering lights and sparkles; he’d never seen anything like it. She looked sad though, he thought, sad and alone. Suddenly, the girls head whipped around to stare at the ground, her mouth started moving as she skittered across the monkey bars to the ladder on the other side. 

He didn’t understand.

Another girl appeared, her hair was up and her face pinched. She looked angry. She seemed to be yelling at the other girl, who was sitting atop the bars on the other side now. Why didn’t she climb down? 

Two more shimmering, angry girls appeared beneath her on the ground. Oh, he thought, that’s why she didn’t climb down.   
He wished he could speak to her, help her, but he didn’t think he could do anything. There wasn’t anything for him to do, anyone for him to help; he could see through her after all. 

Rationally, he knew that. He knew he couldn’t help. Still he ran to her, when one of the girls abruptly climbed the ladder and pushed the first girl off. 

She landed on her arm. 

It looked like it hurt; it must have because her mouth opened in a silent scream. He was glad he couldn’t hear it.

She disappeared after that. The other girls went first, their lights dimming into nothing quickly and leaving no trace. The girl though, she faded slowly. Her arms and legs went first, her eyes went last. He stared into them until all the light was gone. 

He could have sworn they were brown. 

He sat there, alone in the dirt, thinking. What had he just seen? Was she a ghost? Was she some figment of his imagination? Was she real? Was there a girl out there somewhere who’d just been pushed off the monkey bars? 

Shaking his head, Harry got up. On his way home he decided to put it out of his mind, surely he’d just been imagining things.

The thing about Harry though, is that he found it difficult to put interesting things out of his mind. Which, he figured, was why he kept seeing her; everywhere. 

He was dusting the pictures in the lounge room the next time he saw her. He was positive it was the same girl; her hair was just as untameable as the last time. She was sitting, it seemed, in midair. Harry’s mind, which had no issue accepting that he could speak to spiders or that he was seeing a ghostly girl, chose to get stuck on that small fact. 

She was sitting in midair. 

Harry stood by the wall, all but hugging it really, as he watched. Her leg was dangling, as though off a ledge, and she was leaning back against the wall; or at least she would have been if it had extended that far.

Harry fought the urge to smack himself in the head. She must’ve been sitting in a window seat wherever she was. That made more sense than her sitting in midair. Shaking his head, he double checked she was still there and turned towards his cupboard.

“Melina!” He hissed, his voice coming out in odd whispering noises. “Come here!” There was silence, but just as he was opening his mouth to ask again, a large black spider slipped out from beneath the cupboard door and scampered towards him. 

If Aunt Petunia had seen the Cardinal spider in the house she would have no doubt screamed bloody murder; which is one of the reasons Harry adored having her around so much. He grinned to himself as Melina climbed quickly up his leg.

“What is it Harry?” Melina perched herself on his shoulder; the best place for her to be if Harry wanted to actually hear her properly. Harry gestured towards the window.

“Do you see her?” 

Melina turned towards the window, her many eyes inspecting the area. “See who?” Harry’s heart sunk. Maybe he was crazy.

“Never mind…” he kept staring though, and she didn’t disappear. 

All day she sat there, occasionally lifting her head in response to sounds he couldn’t hear and saying things to people he couldn’t see. He found the whole experience rather jarring honestly; he kept stopping in the middle of what he was doing to admire her.

The longer she sat there the more colourful she became. It was as though she were soaking up the suns light and creating an image for herself right in front of him. At first she had been a bland, though still very lovely, girl made up of sparkling light. Now, well now she had a mane of chestnut hair falling about her shoulders and eyes that shone like gold were peeking out from behind her book every so often. 

It was getting late in the afternoon and every time he looked up Harry swore her dress was a darker shade of blue that when he had last looked at her. It must have been happening rather quickly too, for he never looked away for long; he was too afraid of her disappearing while he wasn’t paying attention.

It was nearly dark now, and the girl had been completely full of colours for just under an hour; he’d been counting. 

“Hermione!” The shout was faint, but it still made him jump. The girl didn’t move, engrossed in her book at she was. “Hermione!” the voice was louder, more insistent this time, and the girl looked up. 

 

Hermione… it must be her name. A beautiful one, Harry thought, for a beautiful girl.  
She was getting up, he realised. Closing her book gently and laying it on the cushion beside her where it disappeared. She was going to disappear!

“Hermione!” He didn’t know why he said it, but the girl stopped. She turned, glancing curiously around the room. Was she seeing her living room, Harry wondered? Was he merely a mass of sparkling light to her? Her eyes drifted over him, but then they snapped back and widened in shock.

Could she see him? 

“Can you…can you see me? Hermione?” She continued to stare, so he concluded that she couldn’t hear him, not any more; so he waved. 

She waved back.

Shock rippled through him, she could see him! He felt a wide smile spread on his face, felt a joy he’d never felt before bubble up from somewhere inside him. She smiled, showing teeth that were slightly too big in the front, and took a step towards him. 

Harry ran. He ran the few steps across the room to her, extending his hand to meet hers. He had a fleeting moment to stare into awestruck golden eyes, a moment to feel a hand against his, before she was gone. 

Harry held onto that moment. He held onto it with all his might; the only evidence he had that beauty existed somewhere in the world. Proof that maybe he had a destiny beyond being a punching bag for his family. He held on because now he knew there was something, someone out there worth holding on for.

Harry was eight when he first saw her, he was nine when she disappeared; but he would know her for the rest of his life.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment to let me know what you think! More comments = More motivation to keep writing :)


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